Tag Archive
Smoking Sticks and Carrots
Let’s talk about science! Beehavioral science. A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine last week has been all over the news. It’s much better than previous studies and statistics I’ve seen on the efficacy of commitment devices. Not because others have been down on commitment devices. On the contrary, I’ve been frustrated in the past by... »
Yootles Postmortem
I introduced the social currency (or scrip) Yootles in 2006 with the (needless to say, quixotic) goal of changing the social norms about money. We had two specific reasons for an alternative currency: We wanted to run prediction markets and needed a way around anti-gambling laws in the US Many people find the idea of using money... »
How To Do What You Want: Akrasia and Self-Binding
UPDATE: A revised version of this article now appears at blog.beeminder.com/akrasia. Preface: I love dog food, metaphorically speaking, of course. This article is about forcing oneself to do what one wants to do and I, among other things, want a new Messy Matters article to go out no less often than the... »
Yes, You Are (Maybe) Overconfident
218 of you took our calibration quiz, not counting the 10% of submissions that had to be thrown out for not being complete or giving ranges with the min greater than the max or other sanity check failures. (Here's the raw data.) The bad news is that you're terrible at making 90% confidence... »
